vertautuvat

Vertaautuvat is a Finnish verb form that expresses that two or more items are brought into equality or made comparable under a specified criterion. It is the present passive plural form of the verb vertauttaa or vertaantua, and it is used in formal or technical writing to describe a process of establishing equivalence rather than a simple comparison.

Etymology and meaning: The root ver-ta- relates to comparison, and the suffixes in Finnish verbs create different grammatical shades. Vertauttaa is the causative form meaning to cause something to be equal or comparable, while vertaantua denotes becoming comparable or equivalent. Vertaautuvat, as the third-person plural present passive, signals that the subject and others are subjected to this equivalence process.

Contexts and usage: The term appears in statistics, data analysis, economics, science, and education when people discuss aligning measures or standards. It is commonly used to describe normalizing data to a common scale, converting units, or expressing costs and benefits in a single currency or metric so that objects can be compared directly. In linguistics or methodological descriptions, vertaautuvat can describe criteria, scores, or features that are brought onto a common basis for evaluation.

Examples: Kustannukset ja hyödyt vertaautuvat, kun ne muutetaan samaan rahayksikköön. Tutkimuksen mittarit vertaautuvat, jotta tulokset voidaan suoraan verrata.

See also: vertailla, vertailu, vertaustapa.